Chardin and the Still Life
|
The Ray
|
|
| About the Artist |
| Jean Baptiste Simeon Chardin was the son of a carpenter, born in Paris in 1699. He received some academic training; he was strongly influenced by French still life painters of the seventeenth century and by Dutch and Flemish genre paintings. Chardin was elected in 1728 to the Royal Academy; he was made an associate and then a full member on the same day. His The Skate or The Ray-fish and The Buffet or Sideboatd were singled out for special praise. He rose to prominence steadily from then until the mid-1760s, building his career mainly on paintings of still lifes and everyday French home life. By 1770 Chardin had been chosen to hang the paintings for the Paris Salon, but even then his fortunes had begun to worsen. His son commited suicide in 1767; and the artist soon after began to lose his sight. His last works were delicate but masterful portraits in pastel, then a new medium. In his old age he was honored as a master but his contemporaries regarded his work as limited because he did not produce history paintings in the neoclassical mode. He died in 1779.
|
|
| About the Work |
Chardin’s The Ray was one of the painting’s he presented in 1728 for admission to the French Royal Academy. It has proven one of his most influential and noted images. The painting is in oil on canvas, measures 115 x 146 cm, and hangs in the Louvre in Paris.
|
Related Books and References |
Diderot, Denis. “The Salon of 1767.” in Diderot on Art II, Trans. John Goodman. New Haven: Yale University Press. 1995.
Scan from Mark Harden at Artchive: http://www.artchive.com
|
Tools |
Still Life
|
|
|
|
|
